■ Stocks continue to bleed amid global flight to safety

■ Concerns of large banks becoming insolvent

■ Oil touches lowest level since 2003, but manages to recover on Friday

■ Gold surges 5.5%, to highest in more than a year

■ Yellen puts negative U.S. rates on the table

Markets endured yet another global selloff this week. The S&P 500 (SPY) decreased by 0.8% during the week, visiting as much as a 3.7% decrease, on Thursday, from the previous Friday’s close. Volatility has been substantially large at banks too. Bank of America (BAC) traded by more than a 15% loss for some time on Thursday’s session, touching its lowest levels since March of 2013, later recovering somewhat to conclude the week with a 7.8% loss. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) dipped to a weekly low of -9%, on Thursday, though it quickly recovered on Friday to secure a more modest -0.5%. In Europe the DAX recorded a 3.4% weekly loss. Commerzbank concluded in positive territory, with a 5.2% weekly increase. The bank’s share surged no less than 17.7% on Friday, as it proposed to pay a EUR 0.2 dividend per share for 2014. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 lost 11.1%, in a shortened four day weekly session, amid National Founding Day. The Hang Seng Index lost 5% in just two days, as the first three trading sessions were occupied by the Lunar New Year’s Day.

Similar to Equity, oil too saw declines at the start of the week, losing 15.7% between Monday and Thursday’s intraday lows. Reaching USD 26.2 per barrel on Thursday marked a lower level than that seen on January 20th, securing a new record low for oil since 2003. Towards the end of Thursday’s session, the Wall St. Journal reported that according to United Arab Emirates Energy Minister, OPEC is ready to cooperate on a cut of production. The initial response for oil was a fairly modest increase, to around USD 27.30 per barrel, prospects of lower production were augmented by the aforementioned gain in Equity, on Friday, seeing oil prices increase by USD 3.2 per barrel, and conclude the week with a more modest 4.7% loss. While most assets have had fairly negative week, the global flight to safety helped support gold, seeing it gain 5.5% during the week to USD 1237.9 per oz, its highest level in more than a year’s time.

Are negative rates the answer?

Wednesday and Thursday presented an opportunity to sit back and enjoy Fed Chair Yellen testify before the Committee on Financial Services. Yellen opened her statement by announcing that “financial conditions have recently become less supportive of growth”, which is probably a politically correct term for a slowdown in the U.S. economy. This was said to lead the Financial Open Market Committee to anticipate “only gradual increases in the federal funds rate.” Saying that it’s not clear if negative interest rates are legal did put the issue on the table. But on the other hand, that’s quite far from providing guidance that negative rates will indeed be introduced.

Thursday’s session was considerably more dovish saying that the Fed considered negative rates back in 2010, and that it is taking a look at them again “because we would want to be prepared in the event that we needed to add accommodation.” As the market’s reaction on Thursday shows, it doesn’t really think negative rates are the answer, not for taming the bear, and likely not for the economy as a whole…